• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022 January 31, 2023
Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB January 31, 2023
Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty January 31, 2023
Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds January 31, 2023
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Next
Prev

Climate change 'makes violence likelier'

March 31, 2014
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Alex Kirby

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Scientists say there is a direct link between changing climate and an increase in violence, reinforcing a key finding of the latest IPCC report.

LONDON, 31 March – US scientists say there is evidence that a warming climate is closely related to political and social instability and a higher risk of conflict.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

Professor Solomon Hsiang and colleagues  described in the journal Nature in 2011 how they had investigated whether anything linked “planetary-scale climate changes with global patterns of civil conflict”.

They examined evidence of a possible link between El Niño, the periodic weather disruption off the Pacific coast of South America, which affects the weather and causes higher temperatures across much of the world, and its partner, the cooler La Niña phenomenon, with outbreaks of unrest.

After analysing data from 1950 to 2004, they found that “the probability of new civil conflicts arising throughout the tropics doubles during El Niño years relative to La Niña years.”

They wrote: “This result, which indicates that ENSO may have had a role in 21% of all civil conflicts since 1950, is the first demonstration that the stability of modern societies relates strongly to the global climate” (ENSO, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, is the scientific term for the cycle of alternating warmer and cooler years).

“Climate change can indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts in the form of civil war and inter-group violence”

The work of Professor Hsiang and his colleagues predates one of the key conclusions of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, entitled Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, from the IPCC’s Working Group II.

This details the impacts of climate change so far, the future risks from a changing climate, and the opportunities for effective action to reduce the risks.

The report says: “Climate change can indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts in the form of civil war and inter-group violence.” It does not however argue that there is a direct link between climate change and conflict.

Professor Hsiang’s study is cited in a report by a London-based group, the Environmental Justice Foundation, which works to protect the environment and to defend human rights. Its report, The Gathering Storm: Climate Change, Security and Conflict, says the world’s major military powers increasingly regard climate change as a significant threat.

The EJF says: “In 2012, one person every second was displaced by a climate or weather-related natural disaster.

“With millions of people forced to move each year by rapid-onset climate-related hazards and slow-onset environmental degradation, social wellbeing, human rights, economies and even state stability are at risk…at the highest level, climate change is being assessed as a risk to national security and potentially to global stability.”

It identifies several points of concern, including the shrinking of Arctic ice; competition over water resources in Central Asia; sea-level rises and small island developing states; and climate change-induced migration in the Sahel region of Africa.

“We find strong causal evidence linking climatic events to human conflict… across all major regions of the world”

The EJF report says that while climate change may not be the sole cause of conflict in future, it will play an increasingly significant role as “a threat multiplier”.

It cites a 2013 study by Professor Hsiang and others published in Science, an analysis of data drawn from archaeology, criminology, economics, geography, history, political science, and psychology.

The authors write: “We find strong causal evidence linking climatic events to human conflict across a range of spatial and temporal scales and across all major regions of the world.”

They say every 1°C rise in temperature has been estimated to cause a 14% increase of intergroup conflict and a 4% increase of interpersonal violence.

With the possibility of global average temperatures rising by 2-4°C this century, they conclude: “Amplified rates of human conflict could represent a large and critical impact of anthropogenic climate change.”

EJF is campaigning for the recognition of climate change as not simply an environmental problem, but as a human rights issue as well. It wants the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to establish a special rapporteur on human rights and climate change. – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
43
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
26
Western Arctic National Parklands/wikimedia commons
Arctic & Antarctica

Arctic Wildfires Show Approach of New Climate Feedback Loop

January 2, 2023
28

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Mike Mozart/Flickr

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

January 31, 2023
324
Ken Teegardin www.SeniorLiving.Org/flickr

Virtual Power Plants Hit an ‘Inflection Point’

January 31, 2023
125
Green Energy Futures/Flickr

Australian Suburb Connects Community Battery to Rooftop Solar

May 3, 2022
10
François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

August 2, 2022
3.3k
Joshua Doubek/Wikipedia

No New Jobs Came from Alberta’s $4B ‘Job Creation’ Tax Cut for Big Oil

October 6, 2022
501
Sam Balto/YouTube

Elementary School’s Bike Bus Brings ‘Sheer Joy’ to Portland Neighbourhood

October 16, 2022
259

Recent Posts

Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61
/snappy goat

Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds

January 31, 2023
94
Victorgrigas/wikimedia commons

World Bank Climate Reforms Too ‘Timid and Slow,’ Critics Warn

January 31, 2023
42
Doc Searls/Twitter

Guilbeault Could Intervene on Ontario Greenbelt Development

January 31, 2023
132
United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
121
Next Post

US cools on states' climate action

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}